Summary: Sam's a bit out of touch since the wall fell, tangled and jumbled. Being around Dean lets him stumble back into reality now and again.

Stitched Together (Forever and Ever)

Sam opens his eyes and stares at the wall beside his bed. Fingers clench in the fabric of his night shirt over his stomach. Don't touch, don't touch. He's very quiet and very still, the noise in his head bouncing off the sides and lighting up his mind. Eventually, he hears the rustling of covers in the bed next to his and he remains so so still.

"Sammy?" Dean's sitting on the edge of the bed, the lights tell him. From how his voice sounds, he's dusting off the last remnants of sleep. There's a short pause and Dean's voice echoes a bit. "What do you see, Sam?"

"…Blood on the walls."

"Where?"

Sam smiles then. He likes when he can answer Dean's questions.

"Everywhere. All over."

"Sam. Look at me, not the wall."

Sam shakes his head, dragging the hand that had been curled in his shirt up to his clench in his hair instead and laughing.

"Might not be you. Could be a corpse again and I don't like flies."

"I'm here, Sam. I'm real. And you need to look at me."

The brighter lights, the ones he doesn't like start screaming warnings, reminders, in the echoes. Only hurts more if it's taken away…

"Sam. Sammy…"

Sam's not smiling anymore, cringing in pain as the cacophony builds and builds and-

"Sam!"

Stops, turns his head, makes himself look-

And it's Dean. No rotting patches of skin or pieces missing. Just Dean. Brow creased and hands folded to keep from reaching out and touching Sam. Touching Sam was a bad idea if he wasn't absolutely sure of who he was that day.

Dean looks tired, Sam thinks, regarding his brother for a long while. He doesn't look older than Sam remembers, but just like…like he has more things that make him up now. Just like Sam.

All the shiny new things threading through the old information in Sam's head, through his skin and holding him together. The threads sang and resonated when he was near Dean, they tangled up in a terrible confusion of beginnings and endings any other time.

"Sam?"

Sam must have been quiet too long. But he had to be quiet a lot now. He needed to be away and still to arrange the threads just so or it would all come undone, even with Dean.

Dean.

Sam smiled at his brother brilliantly, like the older, frayed patches of his mind and body told him Dean loved.

"Can we have pancakes today?"